


asking for help

by anavkour



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Lio Fotia Is Always Cold, Lio Fotia is Bad at Feelings, M/M, Post-Canon, galo is a cuddler, no beta we die like men, spoilers abound!, supportive Galo, this was an exercise in editing more than anything else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27978174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anavkour/pseuds/anavkour
Summary: Lio can't sleep. Galo helps.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 118





	asking for help

**Author's Note:**

> i watched promare twice in the span of two days and then slammed out two drafts of this in a week. i'm planning a longer fic as well, but i have other long fics to work on and i couldn't not write something given how much brainspace it's taking up. 
> 
> as said in the tags this was more a writing exercise than anything else, so i don't think there's all that much plot to it. still—hope you enjoy it anyway!

Lio can’t sleep.

He’s spending the night at the station, sitting on a bed in the bunk room that is apparently his; there’s a hot pink sticker with his name and a smiley face written on it stuck to the frame, and no one touches the blankets Lio stashes there. The ceilings are not quite tall enough for him not to hit his head when he sits on the top bunk, so he’s leaned against the corner of the space, blankets pulled up over his legs. Galo’s somewhere underneath him, probably asleep but not snoring. [Surprisingly, Galo is not a snorer. Lucia, however, is.]

He doesn’t usually sleep here. Gueira kicked him out of their repurposed shipping container—now the ex-Burnish affairs HQ—that afternoon. He lives there—they all do—and sleeps on the floor under the rickety old table they’d found on the side of the road somewhere. Lio doesn’t feel like he deserves it—the shelter, the relative safety, the privacy—not when there are so many without. He doesn’t feel like he deserves the luxury of a bedroll either, but the cold of the metal floor seeps so deep into his bones he can barely move when he wakes up, so it’s a necessity.

Lio’d been reading the inventory paperwork that Meis filled out that morning when Gueira brought down the hammer. They’re running low on necessities—rice, soap, menstrual supplies, antiseptic, water filters—and Lio has no idea where to get more. The government had only helped so much for the first few weeks, before saying that administrative action and possibly a legislative session would be needed to allocate more funds and supplies specifically for the Burnish. There’s a system in place for aiding registered citizens, but only Burnish who were lucky enough to pass as normal got to keep that designation. It’s frustrating to watch the supply drop lower and lower, but the only other option of things to work on is the mound of death reports, which he doesn’t have the mental fortitude to do right now.

“Your brain is overheating,” Gueira tosses a foam cup at him; Lio bats it away. “You’re going to burn out.”

“I don’t burn out.”

“Fine then, you need to chill out,” Gueira throws the cup again. This time, Lio lets it bounce off of his head. “I can see the veins popping on your forehead from here.”

Lio sighs, rubs at his eyes. His legs ache from standing all day, he’s getting a headache, and he still hasn’t figured out what to do next. “How do you suggest I ‘chill out’?”

“Go spend time with your boyfriend,” Gueira says. Lio tries to protest that Galo’s not his boyfriend, but Gueira shuts him down with a wave of his hand. “Specifically the night, even more specifically in his hunky arms. You look like you need the stress relief.”

“You just want me to leave so you can fuck your datemate in peace,” Lio replies drily.

Gueira sputters; Meis says, “Just because you can’t get laid doesn’t mean we won’t.”

Lio looks between them, then sighs, “Fine. Clean up before I get back.”

“That took a lot less wheedling than I expected,” Meis muses.

“I mean, Galo’s involved,” Gueira grins. Lio tries to take it back, but Gueira’s already herding him towards the doorway, smacking his hand away when he tries to reach for his papers. “Relax, boss. Those’ll be here when you get back.”

“But I–“

“Go cool off,” Gueira orders, shoving him out of the door and slamming it behind him. Lio stands there for a moment, then stomps off in the direction of his bike.

He doesn’t want to cool off. He doesn’t have time. He’s been working himself down to the bone, on shifts with the rest of Burning Rescue, working on cleanup and managing the Burnish refugee camp on the outskirts of Promepolis with Gueira and Meis when he was off duty, and the burn of his muscles after a particularly hard day is sweet. He doesn’t know if he considers it penance, or a replacement of the fire that the Promare brought, but he relishes it nonetheless. He keeps busy, because that’s what he’s used to. It’s like inertia:an object that is in motion stays in motion. If he stops moving and doing for a second, reality catches up with him, and it drags him into an uncomfortable state of flux.

He only knew the Burnish, the Promare. He’d been a leader, someone who could help them, protect them. When Gueira and Meis had shot him into the volcano, they’d declared that the Burnish lived with him. He couldn’t always do everything, but he could do enough, flying under the radar, keeping his people clothed and fed and safe. That was his role, his job, his purpose.

Now, he feels powerless. Most of the former Burnish still look to him as a leader, even though he can’t do anything he used to. He wants to help them more, but he’s under strict surveillance, being tracked 24/7, not allowed to use computers or communication devices to contact anyone, and many of the people he’s trying to help are still running from the government in one way or another. The new governor hadn’t agreed to pardon all the Burnish, and now everyone’s afraid that any potential crime they may or may not have committed while on the run will come back and bite them. He can’t gather up a group to go raid for food like usual, since that’s, well, _illegal_ , plus no one has their power and they’d likely be thrown into jail. [If Lio steps out of line, he has the distinct feeling he’ll be executed. He is a terrorist, after all, even though he can’t hurt anyone anymore.] He can’t contact Burnish in other cities for aid because of the stupid communication ban, and most of them are having enough trouble in their own communities that they wouldn’t respond to a message. He’s written letter after letter to the government, asking for more aid, and received no concrete response. They’re still cleaning up from the wreckage of the Parnassus, still taking care of non-Burnish casualties, still focused on pushing Freeze Force wherever there’s a problem instead of actually fixing it.

There’s a fundamental truth in all of that, one Lio can’t admit to himself yet. So he doesn’t. He begs, he scrapes, he chafes under the rules, and doesn’t stop working so he won’t have to contemplate what this terrifying new reality means for him.

So maybe he’s feeling a little existentially panicked, shivering under a mound of blankets in the most comfortable place he’s been able to sleep in a while. Normally, he gets horizontal in his bunk and he’s out like a light, but he’s feeling too wired to pass out like usual. He wraps the blankets further around himself. The cold too, that might be the other bit. He doesn’t think he’s been warm since the Promare left. And however much he’d love to crawl into Galo’s arms right now like Gueira suggested, he doesn’t feel like he deserves it, and he doesn’t know how to ask. Lio is not used to being vulnerable, being close to people. He’s fended for himself for as long as he can remember, couldn’t afford to be anything but solis and stoic around anyone. When the protector looks weak or falls, people lose hope. He’s had to be strong for so long that asking for help always took a lot of nudging from Gueira and Meis. Hell, he’d only started writing letters about supplies and setting up donations because they forced him to. He hates exposing himself, and admitting he can’t fix problems on his own.

But then there’s Galo, Galo who has known vulnerability and grown from it, Galo whose job is to help and protect, Galo who had sat with him when he wrote the first request for aid and held him down in his chair so he wouldn’t run off and try to fix the problem himself.Galo, who he _is_ close to, who cares for him _so much_ with almost no basis. Sure, he and Lio had their soul-bonding moment, piloted a giant mech together, got shot into space while being soul bound in a giant mech and watched as a mob of inter-dimensional fire aliens went home. And then there’s the whole deal surrounding the kiss-of-life moment that Lio wishes he remembered more of, and that Gueira calls them boyfriends, and a whole other laundry list of things he’s trying to process. But he knows virtually nothing about Galo, or dating Galo, or dating anyone in general. He hasn’t had time to think about it. He’s barely had time for a quiet moment just to himself. He’s not sure what he’d do if he got it. Probably cry. Or scream. Both sound tempting.

This is why he doesn’t think. 

Apparently, Galo’s “Lio is uncomfortable/sad/stressed/emotionally in crisis” senses go off just as the shaking becomes a problem, because Lio hears him wake up and roll out of bed. Lio didn’t even know he _had_ those senses until recently, when Galo showed up out of the blue at the shipping container right as Lio was about to go into a full-fledged panic attack over something he doesn’t remember now. He doesn’t know if it’s the soul bond, or just Galo. Probably both.

“Lio?”

Lio swallows the lump in his throat. He reaches over to the side of the bed, where the switch for the string lights Galo put up for him is wedged between the mattress and the frame, and flicks them on.

“Yeah?”

A bright blue spike of hair pops up near the ladder to the top bunk, and then Galo’s galumphing up the rungs, trying to be quiet and failing miserably, because he’s _Galo_ and he’s nothing if not overenthusiastic. It’s adorable. Lio hates that he likes it so much. Galo peeks over the edge of the bunk once he gets about halfway up the ladder, rests his arms on the edge of the mattress and nestles his chin on them.

“Hi,” He’s grinning, like he always does when he sees Lio for the first time in a while. It’s been about four hours by Lio’s count since they went to bed, but time isn’t always linear in Galo’s brain.

Lio, despite the swirl of anxiety in his gut, despite the fact he doesn’t feel like he deserves this, smiles back. “Hi.”

“Having trouble sleeping again?”

Lio nods. Galo starts up the ladder again. Lio realizes too late he’s trying to climb into the top bunk.

“Galo, you’re not going to–“ Galo bonks his head on the ceiling, and Lio cringes as it shakes. If everyone wasn’t awake before, they sure are now. “—oh my god, you’re going to get stuck.”

“Nonsense,” Galo scoffs, and somehow he manages to wedge himself between the mattress and the ceiling so he’s sitting across from Lio. His head is level with his knees, which are tucked tight to his chest, and his shoulders press into the ceiling tiles enough to bow them.

“Lie down, idiot,” Lio says, and Galo does, sprawling over his legs and letting his head thump down in Lio’s lap. He’s shirtless as usual, but he’s still a furnace, and Lio finds he can breathe a little easier.

“You’re shaking a lot.”

“Mmhm,” Lio pets his stupid spiky hair. “Don’t lay too hard on my ankle.” Galo shifts so he can free his foot. The tracking cuff sends an alert to his handler if it’s jostled around or poked at too much; he’s caused more than one false alarm running into things, or by worrying at it with his other foot. They send a whole squad of Freeze Force to investigate, and it usually leads to uncomfortable searches and Freeze Force going through his files. It’s overkill. Freeze Force doesn’t even have a reason to exist now that the Promare are gone.

[But he is a terrorist. They’re the police. It’s protocol. He tries to keep that in mind when they pat him down and force him to strip.]

“You’re worrying again,” Galo scrunches his eyebrows together. Lio has never met anyone this animated, and he grew up with Gueira, who has at least forty distinct facial expressions he can make on command.

“Just overwhelmed,” Lio scratches at his scalp, and Galo’s expression loosens immediately. God. He’s so responsive; Lio wants to take him apart and turn him to putty, make Galo melt into a puddle on top of him and bask in the warmth. “I’m fine.”

“‘Overwhelmed’ doesn’t sound fine,” Galo’s eyes drift closed. “Wanna talk about it? Get it off your chest? Being able to vent always makes me feel better.”

He doesn’t, not really, not when everyone else could be eavesdropping and opening up was never something he got used to. But Galo is so easy to talk with, and he’s open and earnest and he seems like he really does want to hear what’s going on, so Lio relents. There’s so much;all of it crowds at the tip of his tongue and he has to swallow back the rush of words before he chokes on it.

“Start simple,” Galo adds, evidently reading his expression. “Or else you’ll make yourself even more overwhelmed thinking about all of it."

He takes a deep breath. Start simple.

“We’re running low on supplies.”

“Oh,” Galo blinks his eyes open. “But you sent in a request. I nearly sat on you until you wrote that letter.”

“I did. I’ve been sending them for weeks,” Lio rubs at his temples with his free hand, the other still in Galo’s hair. “I’ve written….so many letters, and keep getting rejections or deferrals. Governor says they can’t directly give us funds, not without legislative action or something. Since the Burnish are still technically a terrorist group.”

“I thought it was just the Mad Burnish.”

“To them, we were all Mad Burnish,” Even the kids. Lio feels sick thinking about the Freeze Force raids, the kids in the prisons, the ones who hadn’t made it after the Parnassus engine lit for the first time. Their bodies were too small and fragile to survive the fire being ripped out of them; he’d found mostly ash where they once were. His hand tightens in Galo’s hair.

“Ouch,” Galo winces. Lio murmurs an apology, traces the sharp lines of his shoulder blades instead. “Can’t they just ignore that rule? You guys aren’t going to hurt anyone.”

“Government doesn’t work like that,” Lio draws triangles down Galo’s back with the tips of his fingernails, feels him shiver a bit. “Too much politics involved.”

“Man, that’s dumb,” Galo’s face pinches again. “I don’t understand how politics can be involved in helping people. But even if the government can’t help, aren’t there other ways to get supplies? We could ask around. How many people are we talking?”

Lio swallows hard. “Just under five hundred.” They’d lost so many to the warp engine. He still has nightmares about the seventy-two hours he’d spent cutting people out of the fuel cells, the stench of ash and burned flesh thick in the air. Those nightmares quickly segway into his own experience in the engine’s core, and he often wakes up after them with a phantom tingling in his right arm.

“Alright, how about food banks?”

“I’ve asked. You need paperwork.”

“Whaaat? That’s even more dumb.”

“Prevents people from taking more than they ‘deserve.’” Lio hooks his fingers into quotes and stops trying not to scowl. “And the Burnish don’t qualify for paperwork because none of us are citizens and we’re a terrorist organization.” He’d wanted to set the letter from the food pantry on fire when he learned this, almost borrowed Gueira’s lighter to do it.

“Well, what about donations? We can do food drives or something.”

“People won’t donate. Not to Burnish.”

“Sure they will.”

“Galo, you don’t understand,” Lio tries to keep the anger, the fear out of his voice. It doesn’t work. “I sit around and write letters and petitions that the government barely even reads, then try to find creative ways to ration supplies and watch as my people come to camp hungry and scared and bloody because someone in the city was angry at them for who they used to be. None of us can find jobs, and those of us who are lucky enough to have money get refused service because we’re Burnish. Someone broke into our camp and drove an SUV over the fields we planted when we tried to grow our own food, and last week someone dumped sewage into the water supply so now we can’t even use it to wash clothes unless it’s properly filtered, and we’re running low on filters. And we can’t do a goddamn thing to stop it because if we do, they call Freeze Force and keep half of us in custody until we roll over and bare our stomachs and stop resisting. We can’t defend ourselves, no one is willing to help us, and everyone keeps looking to me for answers like I’m still their boss when in reality I’m _nothing_ anymore.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that was happening,” Galo says quietly. “I mean, I expected people to warm up slowly to you guys, but….not like that. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“We can’t do anything about it,” Lio replies dully. “It is what it is.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Galo tugs the blankets tighter around Lio’s legs; he’s shaking again.“You know that’s what they want, right? They want you to think you’re alone and can’t ask for help, that you don’t have power, because it crushes you.”

“But I don’t have power anymore,” Lio curls his hands into fists. “The Promare are gone.”

That ache opens up in his chest. It’s more than the cold, more than the fact that he can’t touch the camp stove or tend the fires with his bare hands anymore, more than the way he wishes he could set his hands on fire and burn the people who got too rough with searches and investigations. Being Burnish is all he remembers; he’d had his first spasm before he hit double digits, joined the Mad Burnish on his thirteenth birthday, risen in the ranks until he hit the top, defended his people and earned their respect. He’d resigned himself to a lifetime of running, hiding, burning down anything in his way. Now that he’s been cut from that lifestyle without warning, he’s drifting, trying to cling onto the remnants of his past life as much as he can. And then there’s the Promare themself: ever since they left, he’s felt like part of his essence got ripped away with the last lick of flame. The voice is gone, the urge to burn is now just his own, and the lack of their constant presence feels like a conspicuously empty chair in the middle of a room. There’s a void there, and even Galo isn’t large enough to fill it up.

“Everything’s different” he whispers. “What do we even do now?”

“We keep putting out fires and rescuing people, of course,” Galo says it like it’s the easiest thing in the world. And for him, it must be. This is what he’s been striving for his whole life, something he’s worked his ass off to achieve and now gets to live out as long as he can. Even though the Burnish are gone, even though the department is getting budget cuts, there’s still the threat of a natural fire, of accidents, of people looking to take advantage of the societal upheaval and cause panic. Galo will never stop being a firefighter, a rescuer. It’s not in his nature.

Lio, however, is more accustomed to setting fires than putting them out, and there are no places for firestarters in this new world.

“Oh shit, are you crying?” Galo’s voice breaks through. Lio blinks a few times to find that yes, he is indeed crying, and the reason Galo knows is because Lio’s tears have been dripping onto his face for god knows how long.

“Oh,” He wipes his face with the corner of a blanket, then Galo’s. “Sorry.”

“No, nonono, it’s okay,” Galo says. “It’s okay to feel grief. I mean, that’s a huge part of yourself that’s gone now. If my burning firefighter’s soul got extinguished one day, I’d be devastated.”

Lio wants to argue that that’s not the point, that it’s a shitty analogy, because Galo’s burning firefighter’s soul didn’t give him special powers or ostracize him from the majority of society. But then he thinks about it a little bit, realizes that being a firefighter is as much of Galo’s identity as being Burnish was of Lio’s. Neither of them have ever considered doing anything else.

Instead, he says, “But it’s selfish.”

“What, that you miss it?”

“Yeah. That I want it back. That’s selfish.”

“Why?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Lio feels the irritation bubbling back up again. “The Burnish can have normal lives now, and no one’s getting hurt because of us anymore. That means way more than me being mad I can’t put my hand on a hot stove.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever been selfish,” Galo’s eyes are fixed on his now, reflecting the glow of the string lights. Lio sucks in a shaky breath and holds it for a second.

“ _This_ is selfish,” he grits out. “I’m sleeping in an actual bed, in a safe shelter, when the rest of the Burnish are in tents in a field where anyone could come in and hurt them. This is a luxury I don’t deserve. And you have a long shift tomorrow, you should be sleeping, not dealing with me.”

“I’m not _dealing_ with you,” Galo squints at him. “I’m _helping_. I like helping you.”

“You barely know me,” Lio says weakly.

“I know enough,” Again, Galo says it like it’s easy, like he can hold onto someone without fear of losing them, or being hurt. Lio can’t fathom that kind of faith. “I know enough to know that you’re not selfish, that you’d do anything for your people. For anyone, really. Especially the people you love. And I know you love your people.”

 _And I love you,_ Lio thinks, but doesn’t say out loud.

“I also know that you’re really brave–“

Lio huffs a laugh. “No, I am _not_ brave. I’m afraid of _sending_ _letters_.”

“Being brave doesn’t mean not having fear,” Galo pokes him in the side. “It means acting in spite of it. And you sent the letters anyway, right?”

“Right.”

“So you’re not selfish, because you put aside your own pride and fear and discomfort in order to help the people you love.”

“But it’s—that’s not–“

“Lio.“

He’s shaking again, even more violently than before. Galo tries to sit up again, then gives up and tugs Lio down to lay next to him, hooks a leg over his waist and an arm across his chest. Lio doesn’t resist; for one, Galo is too big to move, and Lio knows what he’s trying to do—add pressure for Lio to focus on and feel secure with. He’s never had something like a weighted blanket in the past, though Meis and Gueira did sit on him once. This isn’t too different. Galo is warm and heavy and smells like bergamot, and the combination of those three things starts calming Lio’s parasympathetic nervous system down. Galo waits until his breathing’s evened out before speaking.

“First rule of being a first responder is that you gotta take care of yourself,” Galo props himself up on one elbow but keeps the majority of his weight pinning Lio down. “You can’t help anyone else if you’re injured or in crisis, you’ll do more harm than good. It’s the same concept as putting your oxygen mask on first before helping anyone else with theirs on a plane,” He takes a deep breath, sighs through his nose. “The first Burnish fire we got called to after I hurt my arm, I….I froze. Saw the flames and shut down completely,” He shakes his head. “It sucked. Lucia had to manually pilot my mech back to the truck. Chief pulled me out of the field for a week so I could screw my head back on right. I felt horrible about it, like I’d failed, or let people down. But then Chief told me about the importance of self care–“

“Ignis. Self care.”

“Shush, let me finish. He told me that it was vital to prioritize of myself and my mental and physical health in order to do my job. So I took a week off and spent a few more on reduced duty so I could work through the trauma. And now I can handle all manner of fires and crises, and I know what to do if I ever get in that position again.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because it applies to you too,” Galo taps the tip of his nose; Lio sticks his tongue out at him. “You’ve had a stressful few….years, at least, and you haven’t had a chance to take a break. You can’t help anyone else if you don’t help yourself first.”

Lio thinks for a moment. This is in a similar vein of what Gueira had said about burning out; the more he wrestles with it, the more he starts to admit to himself that maybe the bone deep exhaustion and frayed nerves he’s been feeling are less because he can’t get enough caffeine into his body and more so because he’s running on empty.

“I don’t know what’ll happen when I slow down,” he says. “I’m….I’m afraid everything’s going to catch up to me at once, and I won’t know what to do with it.”

“I’ll be here,” Galo says. “And I can talk to my therapist and ask if she has an opening, if you need actual help.”

“You have a therapist?”

“Yup. Haven’t seen her in a while, ‘cause, well, you know, rebuilding after the apocalypse. But she helped me with my arm and stuff. She’s really nice, I think you’d like her. You don’t have to decide now, of course, but–“

“I’ll think about it,” Lio says. He can’t commit right now, not when he still feels raw and unworthy. But it’s nice to keep his options open.

“That’s all I ask,” Galo tucks Lio’s head closer to his chest. Lio closes his eyes. There’s something meditative about listening to his breathing, hearing the whoosh of air fill and empty his lungs, his heart a steady drum keeping time. It’s peaceful. It’s too much.

Lio crumbles.

The tears come back, harsher this time, and he turns so he can muffle himself in Galo’s chest. He cries, _really_ cries, for the first time in months, probably the first time since the dragon, and it _hurts_. It’s all hitting him at once:the Promare, the engine, the final raid, the woman in the cave, the prison, every failure and every loss he’s had to deal with for the past decade and a half smothers him completely. Galo holds him through it, even as Lio digs his nails into his back, desperate for something to hold onto as his body shakes out of control.

When it’s over, his stomach aches, his throat is scratchy, and he feels like he’s been run over by the station’s main engine. Galo wipes his face clean with a corner of the sheet.

“Better?” he asks quietly.

“Not really,” Lio croaks out. His voice sounds hideous. “I’m tired.”

“Well, you’re in luck, since it’s nighttime, and you’ve got the world’s number-one firefighting idiot in your bed to keep you warm.” Galo grins at him. Lio rolls his eyes. That he does. He wouldn’t give it up for the world. Galo ruffles his hair. “We’ll talk about it more in the morning, alright? I know there’s _something_ we can do, we just haven’t found the right way yet.”

“Okay.”

“You can do this. You’re Lio Fotia. There’s nothing you can’t get through if you put your mind to it.”

Lio feels his face warm. “Thanks for the faith.”

“Want me to turn out the lights?” Galo asks, sitting up so he can wriggle under the sheets. Lio shakes his head. After a fair amount of wrestling with the blankets and Lio narrowly avoiding an elbow to the nose, they curl up together, Lio’s back to Galo’s chest, two strong arms around him. Lio traces swirling patterns over Galo’s scars. Galo’s eyes flutter closed, seemingly lulled by the touch.

“Galo?”

“Hm?” Galo opens one eye.

“Love you.”

There’s a long moment of silence, until Galo chokes out, “God damn it, Fotia, I wanted to say it first.”

Lio laughs, digs his nose into Galo’s arm. “Beat you,” he teases.

Galo grumbles something else and squeezes Lio once—gently, but enough to crush the air from his lungs for a moment. He kisses the top of Lio’s head. “Love you too.”

And with that, like it’s a switch to be flipped, Lio sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos have a 100% chance of making my day!
> 
> [tumblr](https://anavkour.tumblr.com/)


End file.
